Monsters and Memories Inquisitor Guide

01The Inquisitor at a Glance

The Inquisitor is the anti-magic tank of Monsters and Memories — a plate-armored enforcer who stands in front of the group and takes enemy spellcasters apart. Silence the shaman, interrupt the necromancer, burn and steal a caster's mana and hand it to your own healer, and strip the buffs off whatever is hitting your party.

The official class page sums it up: the Inquisitor is "the specialist called in when the enemy wears robes." The deep dive calls it "a specialized tank class with a myriad of tools for neutralizing casters." You can hold a pack of melee mobs too — your plate, Taunt and threat-heavy strikes see to that — but every fight against casters is where you look best.

02Is the Inquisitor Right for You?

For a first character, the Inquisitor is playable but busier than a Fighter. The early levels are gentle — Censuring Strike, Distress, Taunt and a shield bash — and the kit grows steadily. If you like the idea of a tank who plays the enemy as much as the fight, it is a good pick. If you just want to learn tanking first, a Fighter is simpler.

03Choosing Your Race

The official site lists four Inquisitor races, but only Human and Deep Elf are playable at Early Access — the smallest race pool of any tank. Here are each race's base values for the stats that matter most; your class adds its own bonus on top at creation, and you get 10 bonus points to spend.

Spending your 10 bonus points

Our Inquisitor class page lists Stamina and Intelligence as primary and Strength and Wisdom as secondary. Stamina is your health pool as a tank; Intelligence supports the spell half of your kit; Strength drives your weapon-based strikes, which is where most of your threat comes from.

• Recommended for most players:+5 STA / +5 INT. A tank that dies is useless, and a tank that runs out of mana loses half its tools.
• Humans start with more STA and STR — you can lean INT a little harder (+4 STA / +6 INT).
• Deep Elves already have plenty of INT — put more into STA (+7 STA / +3 STR or INT).
• Don't dump points into AGI or CHA; they do little for this class. Check your character sheet as you allocate — the numbers update live.

Deep Dwarf and High Elf are listed as Inquisitor races on the official site but aren't playable at Early Access. Race base stats are from our New Player Guide.

04Recommended Traits

You pick one trait from each of four categories at creation (see the New Player Guide for the full lists). For an Inquisitor:

05Getting Started

Your starter quest

Every Inquisitor begins with a class starter quest that teaches the basics and hands out your first gear. For the full step-by-step walkthrough, with every NPC, location and reward, see our Inquisitor Starter Quest Guide. Individual quest pages: Inquisitor Starter Quest (Night Harbor).

Where to buy spells and abilities

• Night Harbor: Inquisitor spells and abilities are sold by vendors. Start with Jaffar Jhaym and ask a guard for the Inquisitor trainer and spell vendor.
• Deep Elf Inquisitors starting in the Underdocks or Ail’Vorith: ask a guard for your trainer, and see our Underdocks and Ail’Vorith pages. The starter quest itself is in Night Harbor.
• Melee abilities like Censuring Strike, Reflecting Bash and Purifying Blow are bought and trained like spells — check the vendor every few levels.

06Your Toolkit

Inquisitor spells and abilities come in lines: you learn one, then buy stronger versions every few levels. Levels shown are when the first version (and each upgrade) becomes available. The kit falls into four jobs: hold threat, shut down casters, steal mana for the group, and block incoming spell damage.

07Abilities to Prioritize, Levels 1–28

You won't be able to afford every rank as soon as it unlocks. This is the order that matters most for a new Inquisitor:

Past level 28, the pattern continues: upgrade Censuring Strike, Purifying Blow and your Distress line first (they hold threat), then Spellshield and your wards, then the mana drains and burns.

08Playing in a Group

Your job is to hold every mob's attention and make sure the enemy casters never get a spell off. A good Inquisitor turns the scariest pulls — the ones with a healer and a caster in the back — into the easy ones.

Before the pull

• Buff up: Arcane Tyrant and Spellshield on yourself, Aura of Resistance or Aura of Rapidity for the party, and a Spell Ward on the healer if casters are in the pull.
• Look at the pull. Consider each mob and decide which is the caster. That's the one you control first — interrupts, silence and drains — whether or not it is the kill target.

During the fight

1. Open with DistressIt generates threat immediately, lowers magic resist for your casters, and sets up a guaranteed purge on your next Purifying Blow.
2. Build a threat leadCensuring Strike and Purifying Blow on cooldown. Both add threat, and Censuring Strike slows the target's casting.
3. Stop every castReflecting Bash the first spell you see; Silence the next. The bash also locks that school of magic, so a healer mob that tried to heal can't try again right away.
4. Control the addsInterdiction an add you can't tank yet. When it wakes it comes to you, not the healer. Scintillating Shock stuns everything around you if a pull gets messy.
5. Feed your castersPillage Mana an enemy caster on cooldown — each party member gets a share of the mana, and the spell refunds itself when it lands.
6. Blunt the big hitsEnemy caster about to unload? Magic Disruption Shell for the whole party, or Arcane Protection on whoever is taking the heat.

09Soloing

The class description is frank: an Inquisitor adventuring alone "may find some difficulty." It's doable, especially against the right targets.

• Pick caster mobs. Shamans, priests and cultist spellcasters are your best solo targets — you can bash, silence and drain them into a melee fight they can't win.
• Keep Ward of Suspicion up against melee mobs. It absorbs damage, and whoever breaks it attacks slower. It costs mana, so pick fights you can finish.
• Pillage Mana refunds itself when it lands — on a caster mob it is close to free, and the mana it steals comes back to you.
• Use Dominate the Mind carefully. A minute of a charmed mob fighting for you is a real boost, but it ends. Have Interdiction or Psychic Choke ready for when it turns on you.
• Sit between pulls once you have Meditation (level 8) — you'll run out of mana long before health on most fights.

10Leveling Path

A suggested route for an Inquisitor. As a tank you'll level fastest in groups, and groups will want you — especially for dungeons full of casters.

See Where to Level in the New Player Guide for more spots, and each zone page for maps and named mobs. Resting near a campfire builds a 15% Rested experience bonus.

11Gear to Look For

Wear the heaviest armor you can find and stack AC and Stamina first, then Intelligence, Strength and Wisdom, with health and mana as a bonus. Always carry a shield — Reflecting Bash needs one, and the extra AC and block matter more to a tank than a second weapon. A negative Charisma on an item (some plate and weapons carry one) costs you almost nothing; a negative Stamina or Intelligence does.

Early gear (roughly levels 1–16)

Upgrades for later

Stats from our item database. Item levels aren't published, so "early" is based on where they drop, and some Night Harbor and Tel Ekir named are tougher than the zone around them. Browse the database for more plate and shields.

12Holding Aggro

• Open with Distress, every time. It's instant threat, and the magic-resist debuff makes your casters' spells land more often.
• Your strikes are your threat. Censuring Strike and Purifying Blow both add threat on top of damage — use them on cooldown on the kill target. Purifying Blow's threat grows with your level.
• Interdiction is a threat tool, not just crowd control. It adds threat to the incapacitated add, so when it wakes (or someone hits it) it comes back to you instead of the healer.
• Save Taunt for when something gets loose. It snaps a mob back to you instantly.
• Watch your mana. Your threat tools, wards and interrupts all cost mana. Sit whenever you can between pulls, and let Pillage Mana top you up — it refunds itself when it lands.

13Common Inquisitor Mistakes

• Letting the enemy healer cast. Reflecting Bash and Silence exist for exactly that mob.
• Breaking your own Interdiction with area stuns or careless tab-targeting — any damage wakes it.
• Burning mana on wards against easy melee pulls and having nothing left for the caster pull after.
• Using Arcane Protection and Magic Disruption Shell too early. They leave an exhaustion debuff, so save them for the big spell.
• Sitting on Pillage Mana. It's on a 60-second cooldown and free when it lands — use it on every caster, every time it's up.

14Inquisitor FAQ