Dark Paladin

An abomination of what once used to be a holy knight.

"By blood and fury!"

"Your agony begins!"

Overview
The first heroic enemy players are introduced to with multiple deadly abilities, first appears in 1-3 in the final brazier wave, and can be encountered in stages 1-3, 1-4, and 3-3. Has 4 active abilities and 1 passive.

Very deadly early game, with 2 high spell damage abilities, as well as high survivability and mobility (in the early game).

Bash (Passive)
Has a 50% chance to knock back and stun enemy hit with basic attack for 1 second.

Curse Missile (Active)
Cooldown (ai-controlled): randomized between 15 and 35 seconds for each cast

Cooldown (possessed): 20 seconds

Range: unlimited, times out in 7 seconds

Briefly stops and channels 3 curse missiles to target location. Curse missiles seek out and track nearby targets and are destroyed upon impact with an enemy unit or unpathable terrain. Curse missiles deal 150 spell damage to their target on impact and do not deal any AoE damage.

Cast can be interrupted by self (Shadow player using possess).

Desecrate (Active)
Cooldown: 11 seconds

Range: 8

Radius: 4

Requirement (for ai): shields or health must not be full

Summons Darkfire that expands from target location into 8 directions, dealing 25 spell damage every 1/4 of a second. Each patch of Darkfire lasts for 5 seconds.

Restore Shields (Active)
Cooldown: 60 seconds

Requirement (for ai): no shields

Fully restores all shields on self.

Relocate (Active)
Cooldown: 8 seconds

Range: 50

Teleports to target location if it can be pathed to normally.

Strategy
They pose a large threat when encountered in 1-3, as there are 4 of them and you will be limited in skill points. For more detail on how to defeat them, see this (will hyperlink when 1-3 page is done).

In general, focusing them down and bursting them (if possible) when their shields are low is a good way to defeat them. Make sure to keep count of when all damaged Dark Paladins last used their Desecrate, and be wary when the cooldown is close to up, as they will generally cast it as soon as they are within casting range and they are not autoattacking or channeling other skills.

If no effective burst is available, coordinate to focus attacks on the same Dark Paladin to avoid the others also granted Desecrate and to more effectively deal damage when Restore Shields is on cooldown.

Dark Paladins will use Curse Missile in combination with Relocate in almost every case, using relocate to teleport away from the target, then channeling Curse Missiles towards it.