Pharos Leader Needs Changed

[The Layup Legend]

I've been past the final bosses, but the Pharos Leader genuinely feels like the most unfair fight in the whole game. Random into random into party wipe every time I see her and I can't figure out a way to get past this stage other than getting lucky and not rolling her as the boss. Is there a strategy here or a mod to just replace her?

[UnderAPaleGreySky]

Huh... Ngl, I've never struggled with her at all. Murdered her in two rounds with a rather undesired Johan, Sizz, Pressel & Narhan comp just this morning. Come to think of it, Johan might just actually be really good against her. Azar too. Being able to dish out lots of damage using many "small" attacks gives an easy out against her rule that you have to attack your party once per turn. Self-harm comps probably hard counter her.

[The Layup Legend]

I imagine those comps do do pretty well into her, but comps where you aren't running a lot of easy access small hits like azar gives just get one wrong mind control on a damage character and it's over. One hand of all heals or all support cards, the damage dealer nukes the team, the pain damage kills them off before you can respond, run done. It's the worst experience in this game by far to me

[UnderAPaleGreySky]

Originally posted by The Melt Man:

I imagine those comps do do pretty well into her, but comps where you aren't running a lot of easy access small hits like azar gives just get one wrong mind control on a damage character and it's over. One hand of all heals or all support cards, the damage dealer nukes the team, the pain damage kills them off before you can respond, run done. It's the worst experience in this game by far to me

Yeah, I can imagine that sucking bricks. I would hate to see Ironheart queue up a Shockwave against the party while knowing that all my current survivability is tied to Leryn. :'(

[Ohko]

Yeah, this boss is a build check to force you to run damage cards on at least two of your team members. It is intentional that if all your attack cards are on 1 person that you won't be able to win if you get unlucky.

[Cute Tea Goat]

Yeah, just generally diversify your team. If you invest super hard in one character you can get punished like this. Also, if you've got multiple acceptably weak attacks in hand, consider holding a few for future turns.

[Mazy]

You can get by even with a heavy damage only deck depending on how well spaced your healing and burst is. I managed to do it with a high mana twins deck where every damage skill did like 20+ damage to my own face.

Pharos hard counters some deck and gets absolutely clowned on by others, she's a weird fight but many times I find her the most lax of the three bosses so I don't think she's really that bad unless you get immensely unlucky.

You generally just want to avoid having only big burst damage cards, which isn't terribly difficult as you got your 4th member who might still have basic attacks.

What kind of teams do you generally run when you encounter pharos?

[Schrödinger]

To me the leader lady is the easier one compared to the other two in that region.
She's kind of a counter against certain playstyles, but is super weak if your build contains cheap use-and-discard attacks like Azar's phantom swords.

[UnderAPaleGreySky]

There's also always Pressel whose mere presence affords a lot of freedom to fish through your deck for backup options when Plan A goes awry.

Similarly, you could try Lian's skill that lets a targeted ally fish for an attack to use as a parry. There are probably similar skills for other characters, this one just came to mind first.

[SufferNot]

I play a lot of twins, which means my deck tends to be a lot of high cost big damage attacks. So it feels really bad when the only attack card I can play is Dark Sun or something like that. Sometimes I just sit on a hand and mostly use fixed cards until I have something I can play which won't one shot a character.

Still, Pharos Leader's normally not that big of a problem. With a good opening hand I can normally just blast her and be done with it on turn 1 or 2.

[cold pastes and unguents]

Pharos Leader heavily counters players who put ALL of their eggs in one basket in terms of DPS, which I am guessing is your preferred way to play (not that there is anything wrong with those strats, just that she is designed to beat them). Even if you're going all-in on one DPS, it's good to have at least a LITTLE bit of a backup plan in case they go down unexpectedly, and generally if you account for that then you have a decent chance against Pharos Leader.

[CheesyNuggets123]

I played with high mana twins when I struggled against this boss, i think its not so bad as long as you have a couple of cards in hand that don't one shot your own team. Also, if you somehow only have one really strong attack in hand, you could just exchange it and hope you don't get another attack in hand, and just use that turn to heal, buff, or just in general stall.

[Samseng Yik]

You probably not understand well enough of this boss mechanic.
Unlike other game, this game boss are MMO raid boss mechanic standard.
You don't "play like usually" when you fight Pharos Leader

[Pars'd / 2]

As someone who plays random comps & regularly has to blast my party with a 50 dmg move, it's still not too bad. Pharos Leader does like no dmg herself, so it's kinda just a game of hit yourself hard, heal it then hit her a bit, repeat like 8 times at worst.
And you can just stun her before she dominates you.
Also, it's kinda important to keep an attack that you don't mind using on yourself in hand for next turn instead of just blowing your load once you can.
If you're reaching hand limit because of the draw from attacking yourself and the same person getting dominated, just accept the overflow. Cycle is generally more important than holding a combo and waiting.

[Sunwave]

Though I don't agree with OP that it's unwinnable at all, it is definitely the crappiest boss in the game. I generally win against her but the lack of control is annoying. Especially when one of your damage dealers gets controlled, and the other one fails to draw any cards (which has a relatively high chance of happening).

More annoying is that you can't use any attacks against HER if you draw one at a time (which shouldn't happen too often if you have a decent card draw).

What irks me most is that DOT cards don't count. If you play with DOT focused Charon for example, she's a horrible boss to encounter.

So to survive her:
- Make sure to have at least 2 damage dealers (or defence/support that can damage).
- Make sure to have decent card draw so you pull multiple attacks per turn, or you keep hitting yourself without hitting her.
- If possible, put some small-damage attacks in your hand. Or common attacks. You can equip them before the boss and forget them after (it won't be to bad even if the other two bosses appear).