The Mindthief is the melee glass cannon of the Gloomhaven starting characters. She is super quick, hits hard and stops monsters in their tracks. This Goomhaven Mindthief guide focuses on building and playing as a damage focussed Mindthief who stuns monsters!
Mindthief Stunning Damage Guide Structure
This article is a complete guide to playing a Gloomhaven Mindthief that focuses on dealing high damage and Stun to monsters.
The Mindthief guide covers all levels from 1-9 and assesses the cards at each level for how well they fit with this build.
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This Mindthief guide follows this structure:
- Why a Mindthief Stunning Damage build?
- Mindthief Stunning Damage strategy
- Level 1-9 cards and decks
- Mindthief Perks
- Mindthief Items
- Mindthief Enhancements
- Mindthief Experience
- Mindthief Combos
- Mindthief Names
- Conclusion
This guide does not contain campaign spoilers or items beyond starting items.
Why a Mindthief Stunning Damage build?
There are several different ways you can go when playing a Mindthief. Based on my experience, I’d guess that the common builds are one of these three.
- You could play as support focussing on healing and boosting your allies instead of dealing damage yourself with some mind control abilities thrown in to turn scenarios to your favor.
- You could focus on ranged damage and turn your initial melee focussed Mindthief into a ranged damage dealer as you level.
- You could play as a melee damage build dodging around on the front lines leaving monsters stunned and unable to get you back. That’s the build that this guide focuses on.
I play in a 4 player Gloomhaven party. That means there are lots of bad guys around in every scenario! When I played the Mindthief we already had a healer and a ranged damage dealer, so the melee damage Mindthief made the most sense for me.
We also didn’t have any classes that were issuing many negative status effects to monsters so I made that part of my build.
Mindthief Strategy for Damage and Stun
A melee glass cannon is an unusual character build. Kudos to the Gloomhaven designers for trying something different with the Mindthief!
It means that you need to be on the ball as Mindthief because there’s no room for error. You need to be upfront and personal with the bad guys to deal the most damage, but you can’t take what you give out. Oh, no. One false move and you’re a squished!
So how do we get around our weakness?
Run hit / Hit run
You are one of the fastest starting classes in Gloomhaven, which means you can dash in and whack monsters and dash out again before they even have a chance to hit you!
To do this, you’ll need a mixture of high and low initiative cards. Use your high initiative cards to go late on turn one, so the bad guys have already had their turn before you rush in and hit them. Then, go early on turn 2 so that you can hit them again before rushing off.
Card initiatives are really important with this strategy, but so is having ample movement cards in your hand, ideally with Jump. The last thing you want is to be trapped behind a bunch of monsters!
Stun monsters!
It’s not always going to possible to use the hit and run strategy. But you have other tricks up your sleeve!
Use Stun and Immobilize to prevent the closest monsters from doing any damage on their turn. As a damage build that generates Ice, you’ll be able to consume Ice for extra Stun actions as you level.
A stunned monster is a peaceful monster! They can’t damage you or your allies until the end of their next turn (if they survive that long!)
Look into the Dark for damage boosts
While our main focus will be on Ice bonuses for Stun, we’ll keep an eye out for Dark abilities that lend themselves to our damage and Stun build.
The Mind’s Weakness Augment
I really like the Mindthief Augments, because they allow you to build the character according to how you want to play. It’s a shame that they aren’t hugely dynamic though.
With a hand limit of 10, you don’t have a huge amount of flexibility. You could take along two or more Augments, so you can change your playstyle depending on what comes up in the scenario. But if you do you’ll end up playing several different types of Mindthief that all perform ok, but don’t excel at any one playstyle.
In some groups, that may be exactly what you want, you may need that versatility. However, for this build, we’re going to focus on damage so we’ll focus on one main Augment, The Mind’s Weakness, and build our deck around it. That +2 to all melee abilities turns you from a weak vermling dealing minimal damage, to a decent damage dealer!
At later levels, we may pick up another Augment to support our build. So we’ll take along a maximum of 2 Augments.
Mindthief Damage and Stun card analysis
There are no good or bad cards in Gloomhaven. It’s just that some are better or worse for different builds. For this Mindthief build, I looked for cards that offered:
- Melee damage
- Negative status effects (especially Stun)
- Ice elemental cards (which often support Stun boosts)
My card evaluations are all with this build in mind.
Mindthief cards
The Mindthief has 29 cards available in her entire deck from level 1 to 9. A unique card to the Mindthief is the Augment card. There are 8 Augments in the Mindthief deck.
Level 1 Mindthief cards
Like the other Gloomhaven starting classes, at level 1 you have the same number of cards as your hand limit so you can just grab those cards and go if you want to dive into the character.
How well do these cards synergize with the Mindthief we’re building? Let’s take a look.
Empathetic Assault
Top ability
A glorious high damage ability with other bonuses that this build loves – Disarm and Create Ice.
It’s an awesome ability to have in your hand for the final room. You can use that range to get in a hit from the door and create some Ice for your next turn. The bad guys will definitely know you have arrived!
Bottom ability
With a top Loss, we really want to have a decent reusable bottom ability. We’ve got one!
Move 2, sure, whatever. We get that on any card. But the Heal 2 Self is always going to come in handy especially when you enhance it.
Put Strengthen on this to gain Advantage until the end of your next turn. Perfect for when you really, really need your next ability to land!
Overall card rating
The 11 initiative is brilliant for going before the monsters. The top ability is a cracking Loss for the final room and the bottom ability is highly useful until we get there.
Fearsome Blade
Top ability
The damage value on Fearsome Blade is ok for us when enhanced by The Mind’s Weakness. As a squishy little vermling, the Push 3 isn’t too shabby either.
After damaging a monster on our turn, we can push them out of our way and into the path of an ally who can take more hits than us! Of course, we’ll only push them away when we want to. Otherwise, we may push them out of range for our next melee ability!
We must be stronger than we look to be able to shove the bad guy out of the way!
It’s a nice repeatable ability for some shiny 1 experience too.
Bottom ability
Losing a card to move 4, 2 damage, seems really steep to me. You do get to do both in the same action, which is pretty sweet and it can be just the ticket to finishing off monsters in the final room, which is really the only place I can see this being worth the stamina hit from the Loss.
The 2 experience is a nice way to top up your experience before the end of a scenario too.
Overall Fearsome Blade card rating
The 27 initiative is quite poor. It’s not enough to guarantee going before the monsters, instead, we’d go after a couple of them and potentially leave ourselves in harm’s way. The Push on the top does help with that though!
The top ability overall is consistently useful and the bottom is best saved for the final room.
Feedback Loop
Top ability
Unfortunately, none of the other Augments can compare to The Mind’s Weakness for this build. Ideally, we don’t want to be relying on Shields at all. If we’re playing our cards right, we aren’t even in range of monsters to need the Shield in the first place.
Bottom ability
I love the image that comes with this ability.
You scurry around in a circle around all the bad guys, jumping over them, getting under their feet and ending up back where you started. No wonder they are Muddled!
It’s rare that you’ll want to run through as many monsters as possible though to apply the Muddle debuff. Instead, you’ll more likely use this to Move 4 to get where you need to go quickly.
A reusable Jump is super important to use as a squishy melee class. It can help us get into, and out of trouble quickly!
Overall Feedback Loop card rating
The 79 initiative is a little bit risky to play if you want to go last in a round, but it’s not too bad. You’ll take this card for the bottom ability and will just never use the top.
Gnawing Horde
Top ability
Ahh, a meat shield! And it has the same number of hit points as us! Lovely jubbly. The damage is fine for level 1, and with the addition of Poison, your whole party will benefit from this summon.
Though, you’d best save it until the last room and summon it next to a group of monsters. With a Move of 1, it simply can’t keep up with you otherwise!
Bottom ability
Yep! A Move 4 is going to serve us just fine until we summon our rats.
Overall Gnawing Horde card rating
The 82 initiative is nice and late for when we want to go last. A little closer to 99 would be better, but it’s still not too risky to play.
The Move 4 is great and we can use it throughout the scenario until the last room, when we’re already where we need to be and we summon our rats into position.
Into the Night
Top ability
The Create Dark ability on this card isn’t useful to us as we have nothing at level 1 that uses Dark, but the Loot 1 is useful to us at any level!
No loot around? No worries! Just use the basic ability on the card which gets boosted to 4 damage because of The Mind’s Weakness.
Bottom ability
Now, this is far better than the Shield offered by the Feedback Loop Augment. We don’t want to be hit at all, with or without a Shield! The best way to avoid that, make yourself unhittable! Simple.
Overall Into the Night card rating
Check out that 14 initiative! If we’re in a real tricky situation and we need to protect ourselves, we can go invisible, et voila!
With Into the Night, we have options. We can do 4 damage, get some shinies and Create Dark, or go invisible. It’s wonderfully versatile.
Parasitic Influence
Top ability
The Parasitic Influence Augment is an interesting one. It’s like a health drain card. For every melee ability you use, you get to heal. The trick is to deal more damage than you take on every turn.
For me, the issue was that without the boost from The Mind’s Weakness, the abilities don’t do a huge amount of damage. It also encourages you to run the risk of taking more hits than you can realistically handle. And instead of dealing more damage to finish the scenario, you’re prolonging it. That can lead to stamina issues, for you and for others in your party.
Bottom ability
Meh. The mind control abilities of the Mindthief are so cool, but this one is just too situational to be of much use.
It’s great if there’s a trap that you can make a bad guy walk into, or if moving it 1 hex away will make it go after someone else. But it’s better to take another ability along that is more versatile.
Overall Parasitic Influence card rating
The initiative is just mediocre. You’ll go late in the round, but maybe not after all the monsters. The top Augment is an interesting idea, but it doesn’t support our damage build. As for the bottom ability, well, mind control is cool, but it seems like we aren’t very good at it!
Perverse Edge
Top ability
The +2 damage for every negative condition is hugely alluring…
In reality, we’ll probably only get to apply Muddle consistently beforehand by using the Move on Feedback Loop, but even that gives us a +7 ability with The Mind’s Weakness.
The trick with this ability is to keep it until the last room and go after the first monster you can reach that has a negative condition on it either from you or an ally. If you can get hold of the Poison Dagger, or get your rat swarm into the perfect position to apply Poison to the target you’ll see another boost.
Bottom ability
Fantastic flexibility comes with having a damage-dealing ability on the bottom of a card, especially for a damage dealer. We can get in two hits on one turn with this! It’ll only deal 1 damage, but it’ll put the monster out of action for a turn!
To top it off, it’s a ranged option and we haven’t gone many of those at level 1. The reusable Stun is great, Crate Ice is great, the 1 Experience is great. The only downsides are it’s 1 damage and short range of 2. But they can both be enhanced.
Overall Perverse Edge card rating
Lightning-fast 08 initiative meaning we can be pretty sure of going first! An awesome ranged ability with Stun and Ice on the bottom and a hard-hitting top ability Loss for the final room. This is a great card for our build!
Scurry
Top ability
A top Move action is just as flexible as a bottom damage action. We won’t deal a huge amount of damage when we get where we’re going, but it can be worth it.
The brilliant thing with this top Move is that instead of moving up to 4 hexes on a turn, we can now run across a room for Move 7. That can be the difference between being the first to the treasure chest or not!
Bottom ability
An 18 hex loot is always epic to pull off, especially when there’s no limit on the amount you can pick up with it!
I like to save this until the last room and grab whatever loot I can and get the 1 Experience before the scenario ends.
Overall Scurry card rating
The flexibility of a top Move and hit is brilliant and it makes up for the situational Loss on the bottom. The 20 initiative is just ok. There will be some risk that you’ll not get to go before all monsters, though.
Submissive Affliction
Top ability
This is a weaker, non-Loss version of Perverse Edge. Even without the bonus for debuffs on the target, we still have a decent +4 when used with our favorite Augment.
It’s a great card for scooping up experience points for doing what we’re good at – hitting things.
Bottom ability
For those times when you don’t need to move and you’d rather get in another hit.
Choose your target carefully to make the most of it.
Overall Submissive Affliction card rating
The initiative is about as bad as it gets for us. Right in the middle. So we can’t plan to go early or late with it. The top ability is pretty good and can potentially be amazing if there are a lot of negative conditions on our target. The bottom ability could be a better use of this card depending on the circumstances.
The Mind’s Weakness
Top ability
The linchpin which holds this build together! +2 damage to all melee abilities forever. Awesome!
Because we don’t get the bonus to our ranged abilities, we need to make sure we haven’t got too many of them in our hand. But that’s fine with us. We can be dodgy and use debuffs to keep our squishy selves out of harm’s way.
Bottom ability
It really doesn’t matter what this ability says, we’re never going to use it!
Overall The Mind’s Weakness card rating
Grab this card, put it in your hand and get to know it. You’re going to be friends for life.
Level X cards
At level 1, we can also choose from the level X cards so let’s take a look at them, shall we?
Frigid Apparition
Top ability
A nice melee 3 that we can boost with our Augment to 5. We can consume the Ice we’re making to take a monster out of action for a turn and get an experience point too. Nothing to complain about here.
Bottom ability
Move and Stun is a great combo, but losing the card for it feels steep.
Overall Frigid Apparition card rating
The initiative won’t guarantee we go first, so it comes with some risk. The top of this card is almost always going to be better to use than the bottom as a damage-dealing build.
Use the bottom ability in the last room if you want to get the experience before the end of the scenario and everything is going in your favor.
Possession
Top ability
When I first saw this ability, I was surprised to see that the Mindthief’s mind control abilities can also be inflicted on allies. But it makes total sense given the vermling’s place in Gloomhaven. They aren’t exactly treated well by most humans!
But is this ability worth it for our build? Well, maybe. If you feel like it’s worth skipping your own hit once per scenario, and have an ally do it instead, then take it with you. For me, it’s not worth it.
I’m here to deal damage, not get other people to do it for me!
Bottom ability
As above but not as cool. This Move 4 is good for getting your rat swarm summon to catch up if you summoned it too early and it’s fallen behind. Otherwise, it’s a way to shift an ally out of the way if they are about to get squished.
The main problem with it is that you’ll be giving up one of your movement slots for a Move for an ally. And to be honest, we need to be able to move more than they do. We are a melee glass cannon!
Overall Possession card rating
The 51 initiative is about as bad as you can get. You have no idea if you’ll go early or late in the round.
Both the abilities would suit a Mindthief build focussed more on support rather than damage, so it’s not for us.
Withering Claw
Top ability
This is the only other Augment at level 1 that I found to be a real contender against The Mind’s Weakness.
Muddle will give monsters Disadvantage throughout the scenario and Poison gives you and all your allies +1 to all damage against them. That will make light work of monsters, especially in a 4 player group.
However, it still didn’t beat The Mind’s Weakness.
Bottom ability
Perfect for our hit and run strategy! After you’ve hit them, Immobilize them and run away!
Overall Withering Claw card rating
The 77 initiative doesn’t gel very well with the Immobilize ability for running away so you’d need to pair it with a low initiative card to make it useful.
The top Augment is pretty good, for higher health monsters that will be around for a while, but for most of the time, The Mind’s Weakness is the better choice.
Level 1 Mindthief build
We’re looking for high initiative cards and low initiative cards to help us with our run and hit/hit and run strategy.
Ideally, we want to take melee over ranged for the +2 bonus from The Mind’s Weakness. Where we are taking cards that consume Ice, we need to make sure we have enough cards to create it.
Because we need to run in and out of melee range, we need to make sure we have a decent amount of movement cards too.
Given that we’ll have an Augment in play for pretty much the entire scenario, we can’t take a huge amount of Loss abilities in with us. Unless we save them all for the last room so we don’t run out of stamina. The earlier in a scenario we play a loss, the fewer rounds we can play without becoming exhausted.
Level 1 Mindthief deck
While each card is useful for two abilities, we’re often taking a card for one main ability. If we ignore Moves (which we just need to make sure we have enough of in our hand) here are the main categories each card falls into.
Melee damage
- Fearsome Blade (Top: Push 3)
- Scurry
- Frigid Apparition (Top: Consume Ice for Stun, Bottom: Stun)
- The Mind’s Weakness (Bottom: Wound)
- Submissive Affliction
Summon
- Gnawing Horde (Top: Poison)
Debuffs
- Feedback Loop (Top: Jump, Bottom: Muddle)
- Perverse Edge (Bottom: Stun, Creates Ice)
Heal/Damage mitigation
- Empathetic Assault (Top: Disarm, Creates Ice)
- Into the Night (Top: Creates Dark)
Level 2 Mindthief cards
Hostile Takeover
Top ability
Right now, we don’t have a ranged hit that isn’t a loss. This also creates Ice and we get an experience point every time we use it in the scenario.
It can be useful on melee monsters to keep them away for a turn while your group takes care of other monsters though.
If you actually want a melee ability, no worries. Remember every standard top ability is also a melee 4 for us whenever The Mind’s Weakness is in play.
Bottom ability
This is a cool move if the monsters you’re facing deal a decent amount of damage, especially because it can be used on elites too.
Just choose your play carefully with this one to make the most of it. Turning an elite against a boss is usually pretty fun!
Overall Hostile Takeover card rating
The super-low initiative of 09 is super awesome! The reusable ranged ability gives us a decent upper ranged option that isn’t a Loss.
Wretched Creature
Top ability
Ahh, nice! A summon that can keep up with us! Unfortunately, it won’t stay alive for very long to do much. We don’t have anything that can heal it and it only has 4 health!
To be honest, for now, we’re better off keeping our Gnawing Horde card. It has better movement, and the summon can absorb more hits!
Bottom ability
The Curse ability on here would give us a use for the Dark we create from using the Loot on Into the Night. But we know that we use the standard ability on that card most of the time anyway!
Overall Wretched Creature card rating
The 84 initiative is comparable to the 82 initiative of the rat swarm. The card gives us a decent bottom action to use while we wait for the right time in the second or final room to summon our rat friend.
Level 2 Mindthief build
What to pick up
Hostile Takeover. You’ll be able to deal more damage in a scenario using the top of Hostile Takeover a couple of times (and potentially the bottom ability too) than you will with the Monstrous Rat who may only survive for one or two turns.
What to drop
Into the Night. We don’t have a use for Dark right now and we can’t afford to get rid of a card with a decent Move ability. For a scurrying vermling reliant on movement, it can feel like decent moves are hard to come by!
Level 2 Mindthief deck
Melee damage
- Fearsome Blade (Top: Push 3)
- Scurry
- Frigid Apparition (Top: Consume Ice for Stun, Bottom: Stun)
- The Mind’s Weakness (Bottom: Wound)
- Submissive Affliction
Summon
- Gnawing Horde (Top: Poison)
Debuffs
- Feedback Loop (Top: Jump, Bottom: Muddle)
- Perverse Edge (Bottom: Stun, Creates Ice)
Heal/Damage mitigation
- Empathetic Assault (Top: Disarm, Creates Ice)
Ranged damage
- Hostile Takeover (Top: Immobilize, Create Ice)
Level 3 Mindthief cards
Brain Leech
Top ability
Deal damage and heal with just one ability slot is pretty awesome. We’ll not benefit from The Mind’s Weakness bonus on the damage because it’s ranged though. Even so, 4 damage is pretty decent.
It is a Loss though so we can only use it once. Does the bottom ability give us something useful to use in the meantime?
Bottom ability
I’m a big fan of bottom damage abilities, especially when they are on 16 initiative card. It’s an ideal ability for us to use on the hit-run turn of the run-hit / hit-run strategy.
If you want to move away as your second action though, we currently only have the top of Scurry that will allow us to do so. That’s fine for now because we’re not using the top of Scurry with another bottom hit regularly.
Plus, we know that the 1 damage is actually and 3 because of our Augment, making it a nice reusable ability.
It’s unlikely we’ll get to use Strengthen to its maximum effect though…
If you’ve spent your first turn going late in the round, running into melee range and dishing out a hit, it means on your next turn you need to run away. So you use the 16 initiative on Brain Leech to go early. You use this bottom ability and gain Strengthen, but your next ability needs to be a Move to get out of monster range.
Yes, you’ll still have Strengthen until the end of your next turn so it’ll help on your next turn after you’ve moved back into melee range. But you’ll only gain advantage on one hit, rather than two.
Overall Brain Leech card rating
The 16 initiative is going to come in handy for going early in the round. It’s nice to get a little bottom hit in too before we dash away. The top ability is super cool and feels epic to use once per scenario.
Silent Scream
Top ability
A fantastic Augment for playing a support build Mindthief. Healing every time you cause damage makes for a pretty cool healer. It’s a bit like you’re taking health from monsters and passing it along to your allies.
Bottom ability
I love the imagery that this card creates!
You, a little squishy vermling, dashes into a group of monsters and then pushes them all out of the way in a circle around you. Adding Jump to the Move of this makes it even cooler.
Manipulating the movement of monsters is always useful. Traps are the obvious reason why, but more subtle than that, shoving them into the path of allies able to take more hits than you is also a valid choice!
Overall Silent Scream card rating
In our build, the top Augment isn’t going to be used because we’re not about healing. The bottom ability would be useful to us, but it’s better to have a card in our hand where both the top and bottom align with what we’re doing.
Level 3 Mindthief build
What to pick up
Brain Leech aligns better with our build, so we pick that up.
What to drop
We’re adding a bottom damage action, so we need to replace another damage action, ideally. Given that bottom damage-dealing actions are pretty rare, we haven’t got many to choose from. Perverse Edge comes with Stun which we want to keep, The Mind’s Weakness is too essential to consider, leaving us with Fearsome Blade, Hostile Takeover, and Submissive Affliction.
Fearsome Blade and Hostile Takeover both have excellent monster manipulating top abilities which leaves us with Submissive Affliction. We drop Submissive Affliction.
Level 3 Mindthief deck
Melee damage
- Fearsome Blade (Top: Push 3)
- Scurry
- Frigid Apparition (Top: Consume Ice for Stun, Bottom: Stun)
- The Mind’s Weakness (Bottom: Wound)
- Brain Leech (Top: Create Dark, Bottom: Strengthen)
Summon
- Gnawing Horde (Top: Poison)
Debuffs
- Feedback Loop (Top: Jump, Bottom: Muddle)
- Perverse Edge (Bottom: Stun, Creates Ice)
Heal/Damage mitigation
- Empathetic Assault (Top: Disarm, Creates Ice)
Ranged damage
- Hostile Takeover (Top: Immobilize, Create Ice)
Level 4 Mindthief cards
Cranium Overload
Top ability
This is one incredible ability! Not only do you get to remove any normal monster instantly without even standing next to them, but you get to hit all their friends nearby too! As if that wasn’t enough, you also scoop up an experience point for each bad guy you target.
When you use this ability you will feel so, so powerful!
Bottom ability
Exactly the kind of ability we love to see on the bottom of a card with a top loss action. Move 5 is always going to be useful.
Overall Cranium Overload card rating
That 05 initiative is amazing. For most of the scenario, you’ll use it to make sure you go before the monsters, and for when the time is right to use that epic top loss, you can pull it off before the monsters get a chance to mess up your plan!
Pilfer
Top ability
This ability tempts you into Looting rather when in melee range. Of course, you can just use it as a regular loot action and ignore the conditional bonus.
To be honest, we don’t really need to take an action looting. We pick up loot fairly easily anyway because we scurry around the room so much we often land on loot hexes as we go!
Bottom ability
With both hits boosted we’ll be dealing 8 damage over two hits with this loss and doing a shifty little move in the middle. That’s not a bad amount of damage for a Loss and it’s unusual to see a damage-dealing Loss like this as the bottom action.
Overall Pilfer card rating
The initiative is too low at 68 to guarantee that you’ll go last in a round. The top ability doesn’t align with our damage and Stun focus, and it just isn’t good enough on a card with a bottom loss.
Level 4 Mindthief build
What to pick up
Cranium Overload is the winner for us. That 05 initiative is too good to pass over. The top ability will make you feel epic, and the Move 5 is so, so useful.
What to drop
Now that we have a repeatable Move 5 we can replace a card with a repeatable lower move action. Looking at the level 1 abilities that fit this criteria, we have Empathetic Assault, Feedback Loop, and Gnawing Horde.
Jump and Muddle on Feedback Loop are useful, the heal with Bless enhancement on Empathetic Assault is great, so it’s time for our rat friends to go. We drop Gnawing Horde.
Level 4 Mindthief deck
Melee damage
- Fearsome Blade (Top: Push 3)
- Scurry
- Frigid Apparition (Top: Consume Ice for Stun, Bottom: Stun)
- The Mind’s Weakness (Bottom: Wound)
- Brain Leech (Top: Create Dark, Bottom: Strengthen)
Debuffs
- Feedback Loop (Top: Jump, Bottom: Muddle)
- Perverse Edge (Bottom: Stun, Creates Ice)
Heal/Damage mitigation
- Empathetic Assault (Top: Disarm, Creates Ice)
Ranged damage
- Hostile Takeover (Top: Immobilize, Create Ice)
- Cranium Overload
Level 5 Mindthief cards
Frozen Mind
Top ability
This is the only other Augment that I really love for this build. Every time you hit a monster it can’t hit you back. You’ll need to consume Ice of course, but we currently have three abilities that create Ice and only one that consumes it.
As we’re primarily a damage dealer, Stun is secondary for us because it’s more of a supporting action. However, it’s still pretty epic. We can run in and hit nearby foes putting them out of action so we don’t necessarily need to run away.
Of course, we’ll need to get rid of The Mind’s Weakness if we play this Augment instead.
Bottom ability
Great if you want to force a monster face first into a trap or move it towards a different ally. Otherwise, a movement ability for us would be way more useful.
Overall Frozen Mind card rating
The top Stun Augment is very cool but it can’t beat The Mind’s Weakness for this build. We are damage first, Stun second.
Mass Hysteria
Top ability
Spreading Muddle around four monsters at once is incredibly powerful. Target those that are getting in the hits that you’re most concerned about to swing the situation in your favor.
You’ll generate an Ice too which we don’t really need more of right now, but it makes it even easier to use the Stun on Frigid Apparition.
Bottom ability
The two Augment play sounds amazing but don’t bank on having two Augments out for the entire scenario. You’ll become exhausted too quickly.
It’s a fun trick to pull out in the final room, but you need to build your deck with that in mind. So you need to make sure the Augment that you choose has an awesome other ability to use in the meantime.
Overall Mass Hysteria card rating
The 12 initiative is nice and low for going early and giving four monsters disadvantage is incredibly useful.
Level 5 Mindthief build
What to pick up
Mass Hysteria is the better card for us. That top action is awesome.
What to drop
We’re picking up a ranged ability that will deal 4 damage per use, but we’re not adding any movement. So we need to be careful with what we swap out.
Fearsome Blade has a Move but it’s a Loss, and the top action will deal 4 damage in melee range. Is it better to deal 4 damage across 4 monsters, inflict Muddle on each of them and create Ice? I think so. We drop Fearsome Blade.
Level 5 Mindthief deck
Melee damage
- Scurry
- Frigid Apparition (Top: Consume Ice for Stun, Bottom: Stun)
- The Mind’s Weakness (Bottom: Wound)
- Brain Leech (Top: Create Dark, Bottom: Strengthen)
Debuffs
- Feedback Loop (Top: Jump, Bottom: Muddle)
- Perverse Edge (Bottom: Stun, Creates Ice)
Heal/Damage mitigation
- Empathetic Assault (Top: Disarm, Creates Ice)
Ranged damage
- Hostile Takeover (Top: Immobilize, Create Ice)
- Cranium Overload
- Mass Hysteria (Top: Muddle, Create Ice)
Level 6 Mindthief cards
Corrupting Embrace
Top ability
This is a fantastic ability that gives us a choice on how we deal our damage. We can dish out 6 boosted damage on one monster and inflict them with both Poison and Muddle (very handy for a boss!). Or, we can spread the damage over two foes. Nice.
It means that you don’t need to throw yourself at two monsters at once to make the most of this card. You can play it safe.
Bottom ability
Another Move with Jump is very useful! Yes, please. Poison and Creating Dark are nice bonuses. We don’t need dark right now, but we will do soon…
Overall Corrupting Embrace card rating
The worst thing about this card is the initiative. 39 means you’ll go in the middle of the round which doesn’t play to our strengths.
The two non-loss abilities are great though.
Dark Frenzy
Top ability
This can be totally epic! With both boosts and The Mind’s Weakness bonus, this is an 8 damage ability. And it’s a non-loss! That’s brilliant.
At level 6 we have more Ice than we can use and we generate Dark once per game with Brain Leech so it is possible. Most of the time, we’ll just be consuming Ice to make it a 6 damage but that’s still pretty good for a repeatable ability.
Bottom ability
Move and hit! In the same action! Nice. I’m a big fan of this ability. Used on the turn where we hit then move away, we can then turn around and deal cheeky ranged damage after we’ve moved away. Love it!
The Create Ice is nice too. Not that we really need it right now!
Overall Dark Frenzy card rating
A really solid card. The top and bottom repeatable abilities are both highly useful and the 10 initiative just tops it all off.
Level 6 Mindthief build
What to pick up
Both cards are brilliant and we want both of them! So guess what we’ll be taking at level 7?
For now, Corrupting Embrace just nudges it for me because that top ability is more flexible, and the slightly higher movement with Jump is great. It also gives us Create Dark which we can use to boost Dark Frenzy when we grab it at level 7.
What to drop
Feedback Loop! Finally, we can get rid of this card! That top Augment was just taking up an ability slot because we needed the Move 4 and Jump.
Level 6 Mindthief deck
Melee damage
- Scurry
- Frigid Apparition (Top: Consume Ice for Stun, Bottom: Stun)
- The Mind’s Weakness (Bottom: Wound)
- Brain Leech (Top: Create Dark, Bottom: Strengthen)
- Corrupting Embrace (Top: Poison, Muddle, Bottom: Poison, Create Dark)
Debuffs
- Perverse Edge (Bottom: Stun, Creates Ice)
Heal/Damage mitigation
- Empathetic Assault (Top: Disarm, Creates Ice)
Ranged damage
- Hostile Takeover (Top: Immobilize, Create Ice)
- Cranium Overload
- Mass Hysteria (Top: Muddle, Create Ice)
Level 7 Mindthief cards
Psychic Projection
Top ability
Knock yourself out! Literally. Heal, put a shield up and then put yourself out of action for a turn. What?!
I find this ability absolutely baffling. I never want to ever do this.
If you’re super low on health, I guess you could run out of monster range then use this ability, but seriously a health potion is a decent option!
Bottom ability
Given our Augment of choice, on first glance, this ability looks great. However, we don’t actually have that many ranged abilities and this will only boost them for one round and we lose the card in the process.
Overall Psychic Projection card rating
The heal that puts you out of action for a round is just weird and the bottom action gives us minimal benefits. The best thing about this card for us is the very high initiative that would guarantee us going late in the round.
Vicious Blood
Top ability
Want to stick around long enough in melee range to make the most of Retaliate? No, I didn’t think so. Taking damage to deal damage is not how we roll.
Bottom ability
Move and hit as one ability is good, but at level 6, we have better options.
Overall Vicious Blood card rating
An Augment that needs us to take damage and a small Move and low damage, no thanks.
Level 7 Mindthief build
What to pick up
Oh hello, Dark Frenzy from level 6!
What to drop
It gets tough at level 7 because our cards are all useful.
Looking over our lowest level cards, the top Move on Scurry is helpful, the Stun on the bottom of Perverse Edge is useful and the heal and Strengthen enhancement from the bottom of Empathetic Assault is great too.
Scurry is the one that aligns the least with our damage and Stun priorities, so it goes. The good news is, that as we’ve leveled we’ve picked up more ranged abilities so our turns look more like Turn 1) Move, Melee, Turn 2) Move, Ranged. So we’re less reliant on Scurry than we were.
Level 7 Mindthief deck
Melee damage
- Frigid Apparition (Top: Consume Ice for Stun, Bottom: Stun)
- The Mind’s Weakness (Bottom: Wound)
- Brain Leech (Top: Create Dark, Bottom: Strengthen)
- Corrupting Embrace (Top: Poison, Muddle, Bottom: Poison, Create Dark)
- Dark Frenzy (Top: Consume Ice, Consume Dark, Bottom: Create Ice.)
Debuffs
- Perverse Edge (Bottom: Stun, Creates Ice)
Heal/Damage mitigation
- Empathetic Assault (Top: Disarm, Creates Ice)
Ranged damage
- Hostile Takeover (Top: Immobilize, Create Ice)
- Cranium Overload
- Mass Hysteria (Top: Muddle, Create Ice)
Level 8 Mindthief cards
Domination
Top ability
I’m not a huge fan of this ability. We need to be adjacent to an ally to use it, and really with our Augments it effectively means it’s 6 damage if that ally is in melee range.
Because the ally needs to be adjacent, if they are in melee range, then we aren’t far away ourselves so we may as well use our own ability.
Bottom ability
This is a straight upgrade to Hostile Takeover, giving us a Range 5 instead of a Range 3 AND we get to control its actions. So we can direct it to go after exactly who we want it to. That’s pretty cool.
It has the same issue as its predecessor that you need to choose a decent monster to make the most of it.
Overall Domination card rating
The upgraded monster mind control ability is pretty cool, but it’s a loss. Because it’s a loss we need a decent, reusable top action that we can use pretty much anywhere. The top action on Domination doesn’t give us that.
Shared Nightmare
Top ability
Sweet! A multi-target ability that dishes out some negative status effects with that Dark we have floating around for when we don’t use it on Dark Frenzy. We create yet more Ice (the room must be freezing when we leave!) and scoop up an experience too.
What makes it even better is that it’s repeatable!
Bottom ability
A Move 5 is always, always welcome. And you know what, with so much Ice floating around, we may as well add the Shield and get an Experience point.
Overall Shared Nightmare card rating
All those status effects are glorious, and the 07 initiative makes it even better!
Level 8 Mindthief build
What to pick up
Shared Nightmare. It’s just too good.
What to drop
Without Scurry, our turns now need a Move (bottom action) and a hit (top action) because we don’t have a top Move action anymore. What we do have, however, is two bottom hit actions on Perverse Edge and Brain Leech. They are tricky for us to use now.
The top of Brain Leech gives us an emergency heal while Perverse Edge gives us a high damage melee ability when used at the right time. Seeing as we’re all about damage and Stun Brain Leech goes.
Level 8 Mindthief deck
Melee damage
- Frigid Apparition (Top: Consume Ice for Stun, Bottom: Stun)
- The Mind’s Weakness (Bottom: Wound)
- Corrupting Embrace (Top: Poison, Muddle, Bottom: Poison, Create Dark)
- Dark Frenzy (Top: Consume Ice, Consume Dark, Bottom: Create Ice.)
Debuffs
- Perverse Edge (Bottom: Stun, Creates Ice)
Heal/Damage mitigation
- Empathetic Assault (Top: Disarm, Creates Ice)
Ranged damage
- Hostile Takeover (Top: Immobilize, Create Ice)
- Cranium Overload
- Mass Hysteria (Top: Muddle, Create Ice)
- Shared Nightmare (Top: Consume Dark for Poison and Curse. Create Ice, Bottom: Consume Ice for Shield 1 Self, 1 Exp)
Level 9 Mindthief cards
Many as One
Top ability
While the Rat King is at full health, he’ll deal 5 damage with every hit. As soon as he takes a hit, he gets weaker.
So, let’s say he survived for 3 rounds, one at 9 hit points, one at 5 hit points and one at 1 hit points. That’s 5+3+1 so he’ll do 9 damage. That’s ok, but not amazing for a Loss card at level 9. He might survive for longer, you may have a support character that can keep healing him, but in reality, for an AI controlled melee summon 3 rounds is probably realistic.
Add in that he’s a Loss with slow movement, and you’ll want to save him for the last room really. So the last thing we want on the bottom of the card is another Loss ability.
Bottom ability
Ah, look! A bottom Loss ability!
Even with the maximum number of players, all in the ideal positions, this is a +3 bonus to everyone’s damage this round. So it’s a 9 damage Loss card unless your allies do two hits each on their turn, then it’d be an 18 damage ability. But that’s highly unlikely.
Overall Many as One card rating
For a level 9 card this isn’t great. The high initiative number is good if you want to go last in a round, but that’s about it. The double loss abilities force you to use it earlier in a scenario than you would other losses, reducing your stamina.
Phantasmal Killer
Top ability
Remember that ability on the bottom of Mass Hysteria that lets us have two Augments in play? Well, we may have just found a use for it!
Of course, to do that, you’ll need to use up the loss on Mass Hysteria, and use up Phantasmal Killer too. But fortunately, you can save this until the last room thanks to the bottom repeatable ability.
Up till now, we’ve only been able to Create Dark by using the bottom of Corrupting Embrace. With Phantasmal Killer also creating Dark, we can now max out Dark Frenzy and Shared Nightmare more often. Until we get to the last room, that is. Then we’ll put this Augment in play and it will eat all our Dark!
Bottom ability
Move 2, Loot 1, Invisible, Self, Create Dark.
We’re not going to move far with a Move 2, but we’ll at least move out of the way enough to use a ranged ability without penalty. Because we’ll likely still be in harm’s way, we can throw Invisibility on ourselves and stay safe. If we just happen to pick up some loot along the way too, fantastic!
Overall Phantasmal Killer card rating
For a capstone card, it’s still not incredible, but it’s good enough. We get a repeatable Move 2 with extras and a nice immediate monster removal Augment to use in the last room.
Level 9 Mindthief build
What to pick up
Phantasmal Killer.
What to drop
Empathetic Assault. We swap a Move 2 for a Move 2 and the Heal 2 is pretty weak at level 9. We will lose the Strengthen enhancement by replacing it, but by level 9 our modifier deck is pretty decent anyway.
Level 9 Mindthief deck
So here we have our final deck. You’ll notice that this build starts off being a very melee damage heavy playstyle dodging in and out of range. Then as it levels, it becomes more balanced between melee and ranged abilities in exchange for some of that movement.
Melee damage
- Frigid Apparition (Top: Consume Ice for Stun, Bottom: Stun)
- The Mind’s Weakness (Bottom: Wound)
- Corrupting Embrace (Top: Poison, Muddle, Bottom: Poison, Create Dark)
- Dark Frenzy (Top: Consume Ice, Consume Dark, Bottom: Create Ice.)
- Phantasmal Killer (Top: Consume Dark, Bottom: Invisible, Self, Create Dark)
Debuffs
- Perverse Edge (Bottom: Stun, Creates Ice)
Ranged damage
- Hostile Takeover (Top: Immobilize, Create Ice)
- Cranium Overload
- Mass Hysteria (Top: Muddle, Create Ice)
- Shared Nightmare (Top: Consume Dark for Poison and Curse. Create Ice, Bottom: Consume Ice for Shield 1 Self, 1 Exp)
Mindthief Perks
As with all the Gloomhaven classes, it generally makes sense to improve your modifier deck as the first thing you do with your perks. So take all of those improvements first. Ideally, remove all the negatives as much as you can to make your damage output more predictable.
Then add in the pluses. After those, add the ignore negative scenario effects perk before you thin your deck out. Those Curses will be more noticeable in a thinner deck!
Then remove the +0s to increase the likelihood of flipping the good cards.
Then you’re ready to add in the rolling plus modifiers.
After that, take Stun because it aligns the best with our build. Then take the rest of the modifier perks in whatever order you think.
Personally, I think Muddle is more useful than Immobilize, because monster disadvantage is always useful, whereas immobilize is not helpful against ranged monsters. The same with Pull bonuses. It can be helpful or it can cause problems, depending on the situation.
- Remove two -1 cards
- Remove two -1 cards
- Replace one -2 card with one +0 card
- Replace two +1 cards with two +2 cards
- Add one +2, Create Ice card
- Add one +2, Create Ice card
- Ignore negative scenario effects
- Remove four +0 cards
- Add two rolling +1 cards
- Add two rolling +1 cards
- Add one Stun card
- Add three Muddle cards
- Add one Disarm and one Muddle card
- Add two Immobilize cards
- Add three Pull 1 cards
Mindthief Items
These are the Mindthief starting items I’d recommend for this build. I’ve not mentioned any items above starting level because I don’t want to spoil anything.
Boots of Striding
Every class likes to have some extra movement so you may not get these in a large group. But you can at least make the case that you’re a squishy melee character so they can really help you to get away if you need to!
Winged Shoes
Less versatile than the Boots of Striding and less necessary because we already have Jump on the bottom of Feedback Loop, but the Winged Shoes are super helpful at making the most of your movement.
Minor Stamina Potion
Our hand limit of 10 is really 9 if you account for the Augment always being in play, so the Minor Stamina Potion is really handy for us.
Minor Healing Potion
We have low and health and we’re in melee range a lot of the time. It’s a no-brainer to get one of these!
Poison dagger
The dagger is a nice way to easily add a negative condition to a monster before using the top of Perverse Edge to get a +2 damage bonus.
Mindthief Enhancements
To get the best bang for your buck, you want to enhance the cards that are going to be with you for a long time and are pretty cheap to enhance. I prefer to enhance only cards that stay with my until level 9 and apply the enhancements to reusable abilities so I see the benefit multiple times per scenario. There is one exception to this that I make for the Mindthief though…
Strengthen on Empathetic Assault Heal
50 gold
This card is going to be with you until the end of level 8 so you’re going to get plenty of use from it. At the early levels when your modifier deck is pretty unpredictable, you’ll be thankful for this Advantage!
+1 Range on Perverse Edge bottom
30 gold
Perverse Edge is a card that you put in your hand at level 1 and it stays there forever. This additional +1 range will come in so useful, you’ll wonder how anyone copes with a measly Range 2.
Poison on Perverse Edge bottom
150 gold
This is an enhancement for later levels when you have more money! The 1 damage on Perverse Edge will serve you fine at lower levels, but later on, you’re going to need something with a bit more oomph! I’d suggest adding Poison rather than +1 damage because it will give everyone in your party a +1 to their damage and will help everyone deal with shielded monsters.
It’s also not a melee ability so you won’t benefit from The Mind’s Weakness boosts on it.
It’s pricey because you’ve already enhanced this ability once with increased range. So there’s an extra 75 gold to pay.
+1 damage on Frigid Apparition top
50 gold
This level X will be with you from level 1 to 9 so boost it up. Because this is a melee ability, when you have The Mind’s Weakness in play it goes from a 3 damage to a 5 damage. With a cheap +1 enhancement you’ve now got a repeatable 6 damage with the potential to stun when you consume Ice. Now that’s powerful.
Wound on Hostile Takeover top
100 gold
Given that this Immobilize ranged ability will be used on melee monsters that you want to keep out of the way for a while so you can deal with other bad guys, Wound is a good fit. After you hit them, not only are they Immobilized, but they are also taking damage each turn, leaving them with less health remaining by the time they reach you.
Mindthief Experience
The Mindthief levels up really quickly thanks to her having plenty of experience points on non-loss cards.
In my group, the Mindthief easily scoops up experience and levels very quickly. It’s not uncommon for her to gain 15 experience points in a scenario without even focussing on experience giving abilities.
Mindthief Combos
The combos you have available will vary depending on the cards you choose and the level you’re at. But here are some that I enjoy using.
Boosting Perverse Edge (level 4 deck)
Turn 1
Go late in the round with the 79 initiative from Feedback Loop to minimize damage risk.
- Use the top of Hostile Takeover to Immobilize your target
- Use the bottom of Feedback Loop to Move 4 with Jump and Muddle all monsters moved through
Turn 2
Go early in the round with the 05 initiative on Cranium Overload.
- Use the top of Perverse Edge for a boosted The Mind’s Weakness melee ability of 5, further boosted by the two negative conditions on your target for a total damage value of 9!
- Use the bottom of Cranium overload to Move 5 away from the front lines
Maximizing Dark Frenzy (level 9 deck)
Turn 1
Use the 09 initiative on Hostile Takeover to go early in the round and pick your target.
- Use the top ranged ability on Hostile Takeover to Immobilize your target
- Use the bottom of Phantasmal Killer to Move 2 to get next to your target, Loot, make yourself Invisible (and safe!) and Create Dark.
Turn 2
Use the 10 initiative on Dark Frenzy to go early in the round.
- Use the top of Dark Frenzy and do your boosted melee ability that consumes Ice and Dark for an 8 damage.
- Use the bottom of Corrupting Embrace to run through your target (and other bad guys if you can) to inflict Poison on them as you move out of melee range.
Mindthief Names
As a mind-controlling, rodent-like, melee damage dealer with ice, dark and stun effects there are some fun names you can create for her. Here are a few ideas I came up with before settling on my character name.
- Skitter Pick
- Skag Icehold
- Leera Sneer
- Ratta Kin
- Flitter Rask
- Kontra Will
- Kur Knock
- Black Edge
- Fright Snap
- Skum Ve-Em
Conclusion – Gloomhaven Mindthief Stunning Damage build
The Mindthief is perhaps the most complicated starting character to play in Gloomhaven, but she is super fun too.
In this build the importance of movement and initiative in staying on your toes and dodging melee hits makes you feel like the scurrying vermling that you’re playing as.
As you level, you’ll shift from mostly melee abilities, to more of a balanced mix of melee and ranged abilities allowing you to prepare the situation before you enter melee range or deal ranged damage after you’ve scurried away!
I hope you have as much fun playing the Mindthief as I did!
If you enjoy Gloomhaven as much as I do, it’s natural to want to upgrade it to improve your gaming experience. I especially like these cards sleeves and this organizer insert on Amazon, and this incredible 3D 108 piece custom Gloomhaven scenery set on Etsy! Seriously, go check it out!
For other upgrade ideas, check out my 15 Awesome Gloomhaven Accessories & Upgrades article.
I’ve created build guides for all the Gloomhaven starting characters. If you enjoyed this Mindthief guide, check them out – ranged build guide for the Cragheart, tank build Brute guide, Tinkerer crowd control build guide, Spellweaver AoE guide, and a Scoundrel single target poison build guide.
I’ve completed a guide for each of the locked classes! A Triforce class guide, a Two Minis guide, an Eclipse / Moon guide, a Sun guide, a Lightning Bolt guide, a Three Spears guide, a Concentric Circles guide, an Angry Face guide, a Cthulhu guide, a Saw guide, and a Music Note guide.
More Gloomhaven articles
- 15 Awesome Gloomhaven Accessories and Upgrades
- Gloomhaven Classes – Starting Characters Overview and Rank
- Gloomhaven Unlockable Classes Revealed (No campaign spoilers)
- Cragheart Guide – Ranged Build
- Brute Guide – Tank Build
- Scoundrel Guide – Single Target Poison Build
- Spellweaver Guide – Area of Effect Build
- Tinkerer Guide – Crowd Control Build
- Locked Class – Angry Face Guide
- Locked Class – Concentric Circles Guide
- Locked Class – Cthulhu Guide
- Locked Class – Eclipse / Moon Guide
- Locked Class – Lightning Bolt Guide
- Locked Class – Music Note Guide
- Locked Class – Saw Guide
- Locked Class – Sun Guide
- Locked Class – Three Spears Guide
- Locked Class – Triforce Guide
- Locked Class – Two Minis Guide
Emily
Hi, I’m Emily, the tabletop gamer behind My Kind of Meeple. If this article helped you, I’d be honoured if you’d say, “Thanks!” with a £3 coffee on Ko-fi.
