How to kill butterflies?

[phadin]

Did they change how to kill butterflies in this game? I am fighting the one in MoM, but I'm 8 rounds in and have yet to deal even 1 damage to this thing. It seems completely immune to anything I throw at it. Even my ninja assassination is doing nothing, and I seem to recall that was generally the go to method.

[Tyler Durden]

Assassination from a Ninja is super effective as well. They are Spirits so use Magic Weapon or have their weapon able to affect them.

[phadin]

Too early in the game for a lot of those options. My wizard and clocker were still recovering from dying on previous ventures when I found the butterflies. They're the only two characters with any elemental abilities or magic weapon. wellll that sucks.

[Corin]

In my experience, I've never found elemental stuff to work well. Maybe I just picked the wrong element. But TLDR: Ninja + Soul Blast are your best bets. If you can get soul blast on multiple chars that's an easy way to one shot them. I didn't have ninjas for most of my playthrough so they were kind of annoying. But soul blast usually did the trick on low level ones, even with only 1 wizard.

Keep in mind that while normal attacks/spells do 1 damage, you can still inflict conditions. This is especially relevant for the later butterflies that heal at the end of every turn. With very high multihit weapons (i.e claws) and KO status inflict you can technically mash your way through them even if you can't kill them quickly.

Remember you don't have to kill them, though. They are purely optional. In random encounters/skull encounters you can just flash escape and reroll the encounter.

[phadin]

WEll, my ninja didn't have any insta-kill weapons yet, still in MoM, and assassination was just as effective as everyone else... the creature ignored physical damage. I eventually gave up some 20 or 30 rounds into the fight because it was just pointless.

[superjwren329]

The weapon in question needs to have an elemental attribute to it if you're going to physically attack a butterfly, whether you're using Assassinate or not. They're considered 'Gods' in the bestiary rather than Spirits, so all you need is a weapon with the Earth/Water/Fire/Thunder trait.

Since even if you KO them with a Guard Counter, if a character whacks 'em with a weapon without an element, they'll STILL nullify the hit entirely while KO'd.

[Silicis]

what I found to work well was using assassination with elemental weapons. I would cast hit up on my party and slow on them once able as well for the later ones. Also try to ensure your hit is as high as it can be if you are still having trouble. Assassination with elemental weapons was the only way I could do real damage. Just using elemental weapons alone did not work as end game I would only do single digits but I can kill the hardest butterfly in a few turns with assassination and buffs/debuffs